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Geraint Thomas says he has unfinished business on the Giro d’Italia as he bids to banish painful memories of the race.
The 34-year-old was in with a real chance of claiming his first Grand Tour title in 2017 when lying second overall going into stage nine.
But Thomas was caught-up in a mass crash when Wilco Kelderman collided with a police motorbike that has stopped on the side of the road and swerved to his crash causing a multiple pile-up.
Bloodied, bruised and battered Thomas continued and even finished second on the following days time trial.
But his injuries forced him to pull-out before the start of stage 13 to recover in time for the Tour de France.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9LYtmhOEEU
“That’s what’s been getting me out of bed over the last six weeks, knowing that it went wrong a few years ago, so hopefully I can make amends for 2017,” said the Ineos Grenadiers team leader.
“I went into it in good shape and targeting my first grand tour win, only for a crash to end that.
I dislocated my shoulder and banged my knee up, so I had to withdraw from the race, so it feels a bit like unfinished business. I’m certainly in decent enough shape.”
Geraint Thomas had to abandon Giro after battling injuries suffered in crash in 2017.Thomas has been focusing on the Giro – which starts in Sardinia today – since the team decided that would be his goal rather than the Tour de France.
The Cardiff-based rider won Le Tour in 2018 and finished second last year, but missed out this time after a disappointing showing at the Criterium de Dauphine.
And Thomas admits there were times he could not watch the action in France.
“I did watch the Tour, but only the final few kilometres of the mountain stages and they were the hardest to watch because they were the stages I’d hoped to be doing well in.
“I watched some of the sprint days and they were easier to watch because I could watch them as a fan really.
“The big GC days were a challenge and made me kind of wish that I was there, but in the back of my mind I still knew that I had the Giro and I was satisfied with that.”
Bot now Thomas is determined to add the maglia rosa to his Yellow Jersey as he goes into the race one of the string favourites.
The route includes three TTs including today’s opening 15.1km race against the clock from Monreale-Palermo.
“It feels like I’m coming into a good bit of form, so I’m really looking forward to just getting stuck into the Giro now.
“The World Time Trial and the Tirreno-Adriatico went well and that finished with a TT, so hopefully I can continue that.
“The Giro course is challenging as always, there’s some tough mountains in the final week and weather could play a big part in that.
“There’s three time trials totalling about 65km, and compared to the other GC guys, the time trial is definitely one of my strengths so I’ll try and ride as fast as I can and hope that I can gain some time on them.
“The thing with this race is that in the last week, in the high mountains and coming to the end of October, you could have completely different weather conditions, so there could be a lot more challenges than say, a Tour de France in July.
“At the end of the day, it’ll still be won and lost in the mountains. I have a great team around me. We’ve got all the bases covered and hopefully they can do 95 per cent of the work for me and I can finish it off.”
S4C will be showing live free-to-air coverage of each stage of the 2020 Giro d’Italia, as well as highlights every night, on television and on demand at S4C Clic and iPlayer. Coverage of stage one begins at 1pm on Saturday 3 October.
